Lessons in Unexpected Places

You think you know it all when you hit fourth year. Okay, you know you don’t know some stuff. But HIV, TB, childhood illnesses and pregnancy? You do think you know as much as there is to know.

And then you come to a little rural area, and a foreign girl from deep in Africa walks into casualty and requests the removal of some sort of injection from her arm.

And you think perhaps she is delusional, but when you palpate her arm, sure enough there are two longitudinal rods.

There is a language barrier, so after much mixed language and signing, you figure out that whatever this is, is supposed to be a contraceptive.

We know about all the medication, all the hormonal devices, all the barrier contraceptives, all the surgeries. But never, NEVER were we taught about subcutaneous contraceptive devices. The doctors here had no idea what it was either, so we ended up using Google.

Those were really popular here in the US when I was in college. . . so 15 years ago. I think they were called Norplant back then. You could see them under people’s skin, so it gave the overly religious something to gossip about.

Ah, I wonder if that’s why their popularity is low. Although I couldn’t see it under this girl’s skin. Maybe the fact that removing it pretty much requires a blade into your skin and a stitch or two was a problem too. Thanks for stopping by!